A moral agent has the ability to make moral distinctions and moral decisions. Individual people, under most circumstances, are considered morally responsible for the decisions they make. When an organized group of people makes a decision, it can be difficult to assess who is responsible for the decision.

Definition and Distinction

To be a moral agent in any situation, a person must be in a position to choose between two or more courses of action. For instance, if a person suffers a stroke while driving and causes an accident, she is not considered morally responsible for the accident because she could not have chosen not to have a stroke. If the same person gets in an accident under the the influence of alcohol, she would be considered morally responsible because she could have chosen not to drink. Therefore, moral agency depends on a choice by a person capable of making such a choice. The question of organizational moral agency depends on whether organizations can be thought of as entities capable of making choices.

Organizations and Moral Agency

An owner of a small business is generally held responsible for all of the actions of that business because the decision is his alone. For example, if the owner of a convenience store decides to charge double for water bottles during a drought, he is personally responsible for the decision. However, if a corporation that owns hundreds of convenience stores starts doing the same thing, it is not always clear who is responsible. The employees who implement the policy don't have the authority to change it. The executives who create the policy might argue they are legally obligated to maximize shareholder profits. If neither the executives nor the employees are moral agents in the situation, the organization itself might be considered a moral agent.

Corporate Entities

The trouble with treating an organization as an entity for moral purposes is that an organization is just a hypothetical construct. The individual people who work for the organization make moral choices every day, but an abstract entity such as a corporation is incapable of making moral choices. This can create situations in which the organization appears to make decisions, but no individual person will claim responsibility for those decisions. If the owner of a small business suddenly loses access to her bank account due to a technical error, she could fall behind on payroll and other bills, and potentially go out of business. Yet if the bank has a policy that delays the resolution of the issue until certain conditions are met, the owner might be told that nothing can be done because the policy cannot be violated under any conditions.

Assigning Moral Agency

Unless the capability of making moral decisions can be assigned to a particular person or entity, there can be no moral agency in the situation. Large organizations will make decisions through a process in which all parties involved disavow moral responsibility for the decisions they are making. Some theories of business ethics treat companies as moral agents on the basis that the existence of a corporate culture and a corporate personality is sufficient to consider the organization as an entity in its own right with the capability of making moral choices. However, this view is controversial and has no clear legal application. Small-business owners and other individuals can gain some power to put moral pressure on large organizations by buying a small amount of stock in the company and speaking up at shareholder meetings about policy changes they would like to see.

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About the Author

Scott Thompson has been writing professionally since 1990, beginning with the "Pequawket Valley News." He is the author of nine published books on topics such as history, martial arts, poetry and fantasy fiction. His work has also appeared in "Talebones" magazine and the "Strange Pleasures" anthology.